Japanese Game Night: Machi Koro

It is time for another recommendation for game night with your friends. This week, we’ve got Machi Koro and it is a fast paced game of dice rolling with cutthroat tactics. YEAH!

This time you get to be in control of your own Japanese city. You start out with nothing more than a single die and a couple plots of land. It’s up to you to build your own fully functional Japanese city… So don’t screw up.

Every new building you purchase offers another opportunity to expand your abilities by getting more dice or even stealing some money from your friend’s pockets. That’s the challenging part; your friends are right next to you and they’re trying to build their own cities at the same time. If the dice on are your side and your friends don’t screw you over, you can create the best city first to win. However, with one lucky dice roll, the person sitting across the table from you may be able to snatch victory at the last moment. (I’m not saying this has happened to me, but my friends know who they are and they know what they did.)

This is also the perfect gateway game if you’re trying to persuade someone who isn’t into your video games or tabletop games with 20 pages of instruction. It’s very simple to learn and quick to go from set up to playing.

As with most Japanese based games, the stylish artwork is always a nice bonus. The playfully cartoonish art in Machi Koro will also help distract you from the frustration that rises up inside you when one of your friends steals the eight coins you needed to buy that airport right before the end of the game (I’m over it, really it’s fine.) So if you and your friends enjoy the idea of a game that relies on simple luck and a bit of strategy then you should try out Machi Koro!